


i’d live in ruin, to lie down beside him

by getmean



Category: The Pacific (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Western, Feelings, M/M, Prostitution, Tenderness, Yearning, like a very fair amount of sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-02
Updated: 2020-08-02
Packaged: 2021-03-06 04:41:25
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,867
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25667617
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/getmean/pseuds/getmean
Summary: The best part of Charming isn't the saloon, it isn't the landlady's famous stew at the inn. It's not even the bathhouse itself, though the bordello is home to it. No, the best part of Charming exists down a narrow corridor, the smallest room in the house, pink sheets strung over the single window to bathe the inhabitant in rosy light.
Relationships: Merriell "Snafu" Shelton/Eugene Sledge
Comments: 13
Kudos: 33
Collections: Sledgefu Week 2020





	i’d live in ruin, to lie down beside him

**Author's Note:**

> written for the 'blush' prompt for sledgefu week!

In West Texas, dug in deep amongst the ranches and the rodeos, is a town named Charming. It’s not a big one. Barely one strip of dirt track that could be a road, if you squinted. A gaggle of little buildings sat shoulder to shoulder on either side of that track-that-could-be. Like a little animal, sprung up from nowhere, sitting spiky and still in the middle of all that flat Texan nothingness. The sullen clouds building up on the horizon, that huge expanse of flat flat blue. Sky mirroring land. Land mirroring sky. Once you get far enough outta cities everything comes up in the same four shades. Brown, red, blue, green. It means surroundings pass in a blur, means you might overshoot Charming by a mile before you realised it was that cluster of brownredbluegreen and not the other.

Not that very many people are making a beeline for Charming. No, the town mainly services the cowhands and the cowboys of the ranches that crop up around it. Once a month it caters to a flurry of rodeo boys with their heads caved in and their noses bleeding, broken bones and their appetites stuck on high. Otherwise, Charming is so sleepy it’s dozed off. Blacksmith, saloon, a couple of houses belonging to people stubborn enough to choose Charming as their home. There’s a general store, and a bank. A half-hearted sheriff’s office, tucked away next to the bank, the only thing keeping Charming from true lawlessness. The sheriff himself plays a lot of cards. Walks that stretch of track-that-could-be endlessly, the sun burning his neck. 

Needless to say, Charming’s main draw is not its inn, not its sheriff, or even its saloon. The saloon is a nice addition to what brings the rodeo boys flocking, or sends the cowhands around after a long hot day of work, but not the main event. No, that honour belongs to Charming’s own bordello, a pink-painted waking dream sat firmly at the edge of town.

It sits and melts in the Texan sun, a perfect piece of confectionary, made all the more enticing for the true sweetness that waits inside. _Mahogany Hall_ , the sign proclaims, peeling in the sun. Candy pink, the roof of the porch a pale haint blue to ward off the devil, its awnings sagging and fading in the harsh sun. To the back, a garden grows. To the front, horses are lashed to their posts and left to flick flies from themselves as their masters disappear into the two storeys of pleasure waiting for them.

Eugene is not a local cowhand. He’s not even a cowhand at all. He’s just one of many men who happened to pass through Charming at one point, only for their world to re-orient to orbit the town instead. He can’t keep track of how many times his heart has pulled him back to this strip of buildings out here in the middle of the desert. It’s enough that when he arrives, his horse goes easily to the trough, fitting in next to the half-dozen other steeds waiting it out there too. It’s enough that when he steps inside, the shade inside the house blissful after riding in the heat of the day, he doesn’t need to communicate what he’s here for. 

The madam, painted hen to her flock of chicks, recognises him every time. Eugene supposes there must be a knack to running a good whorehouse. He doesn’t think he has it in him; he doesn’t think any man does. It takes a sharp mind. Takes a sharp tongue. She’s done up in blue today, that dagger tongue tucked behind her teeth as she smiles at him, and jerks her head toward the bar. Eugene’s never learned her name. He supposes it’d dull some of the mystery if he did. 

Eugene sits at the bar. Drinks a whiskey as he waits, the whole room full of the smell of men, of anticipation, equal parts trepidation. Sweat and hormones and the stink of cattle on their clothes. Eugene’s a writer. He never smells like them. He wonders if that’s why Merriell likes him so much. 

An ashtray holds court by his shoulder. Eugene rolls himself a cigarette, plucks a matchbook from the dish on the bar, and lights it. The stool he’s sat on creaks as he leans back to tuck the book away. He must have a dozen of them at home. Dyed pink and gaudy, cluttering his bedside drawer.

The best part of Charming isn't the saloon, it isn't the landlady's famous stew at the inn. It's not even the bathhouse itself, though the bordello is home to it. No, the best part of Charming exists down a narrow corridor, the smallest room in the house, pink sheets strung over the single window to bathe the inhabitant in rosy light. Merriell. Eugene doesn't know if he has a last name or not. Doesn't know whether he knows himself. Not that it matters. Eugene daydreams about giving the man his own last name; whisking him away from the whiskey-soaked floorboards of the bathhouse, granting him a new name and a new identity in one fell swoop. Silly, pathetic daydreams.

He swills the dregs of his whiskey in the glass, spotted with soap, just enough to taste. Eugene's always been a man with dreams too big for the head they spring from. The only thing convincing him that this isn't just another one of his vague fancies is that no matter how many times Merriell rebuffs him, Eugene always comes back. The ceiling fan beats overhead, stirring the hot air around. It's warm enough inside that Eugene can feel sweat beginning to prickle under his clothes; born from riding, re-born again in close air inside the bathhouse. Wooden walls creaking from all the secrets they've seen, holding the heat inside like it's a game. 

Merriell's room is always like a hothouse, gem of Charming. He does good trade, though Eugene doesn't like to think of that. He likes to believe that the only person who's been inside that pink-drenched room, who's seen Merriell by that rosy light, is him and only him. 

Just as Eugene's about to order another drink, a hand slips from his shoulder to his chest, and a front presses to his back. "Sorry to keep you waitin'," a voice drawls, that syrupy, heavy accent that always seems to curl over Eugene like hot molasses. He grins, and closes his eyes, drops his head back against the shoulder behind him. Smells rose-water, musk. 

"Not for a second," he says, and then pats the stool next to him. "Wanna join me for one?" 

Merriell presses his face into Eugene's hair, and then detaches. His hand taps playfully against Eugene's bicep. "You stink," he says, but takes a seat regardless. Eugene, eager to get his first proper look at the man for the first time in too long, follows his movements like an eager little dog. Not for the first time, he wonders who really has the power in their dynamic. 

"What're you drinkin'?" Eugene asks, eyes drifting from the loose, dark curl of Merriell's hair, to the softness of his mouth. He's got one of those faces that you just want to stop everything you're doing to look at. All the hard angles of him against all that softness, like God had pushed together all the best parts of man to make him up. Mouth like a girl, eyes sharp and wary like a whip crack. 

"Whatever you're havin'," that mouth says, and Eugene drags his attention back up to Merriell's eyes just in time to see them curve in a smile. "Actually, fuck that." He waves his hand to catch the bartender's attention; Bill, a short little guy with a mouth almost as big as him. "Bill, gimme the top shelf stuff."

Bill's grin grows. "Is your friend gonna pay for it?" he asks, clattering a tray of glasses together to be washed. 

Merriell's eyes slide to meet Eugene's. Pale, and huge; made bigger and more sultry by the dark pencil he lines them with. "Are you?" he asks, no shyness about the question. Eugene's eyes flick to the window, mentally tallying the bills in his pocket. When he looks back, Merriell has his cheek pressed to his shoulder, every inch of him radiating sweetness. Eugene relents.

"Sure," he says, and Merriell presses himself into Eugene's side with a pleased noise. "Two, please."

Bill rolls his eyes before reaching the bottle down. Real big and over-exaggerated, so Eugene doesn't miss it. He doesn't care. He knows he's a sap, and he knows that Merriell has him wrapped expertly around his little finger. It just doesn't matter. Eugene's got no family waiting on him back at home. Got nothing pulling on his pockets but a pokey one bed in Mobile, and Merriell. He knows which one he's happier spending his money on.

They drink, and Eugene rolls Merriell a cigarette that he turns his nose up at, and re-rolls for himself. Sets it between his lips with a grin that's thrown just a little soft by the liquor. He's not wearing anything nice, but still Eugene thinks he's the prettiest thing in the whole town. In the whole state. He couldn’t say that about half the girls in the house, even with them done up in all their silks and skirts. Merriell's pretty in a pair of slacks and an off-white tee, lips red from how he's worrying at them with his teeth, eyes dark and playful as he drapes himself all over Eugene. Arm over his shoulders, face close to his ear, murmuring, _and where've you been, Genie?_ with his mouth right up against the shell of Eugene's ear. He mustn't stink that bad, or maybe Merriell just likes it. Eugene likes _his_ smell. The skin-salt-sweat smell that lies just under that rosewater in his hair and the musk on his throat.

"Nowhere special," Eugene says, like he always does. And Merriell, like he always does, ekes the answers he wants to hear out of him. 

He and Merriell had met two years ago. Eugene had taken himself away for a brief stint of soul searching, which mostly comprised of travelling west for as long as he could stand it. This was before before the one bed in Mobile, before Eugene had any responsibilities to speak of. Nothing but a bundle of notepads to write what he thought would be the next American Great, a tidy fold of money, and his horse. As it was, he collected notes together for something a little less _Huckleberry Finn_ than it was human interest. Bouncing from ranch to farm to inn, Eugene began to become fascinated with the migrant worker; the cowboy, the ranch hand, the poor souls travelling to California to pick oranges. He fell into Charming completely by chance, but fell into the bathhouse with a little more purpose shortly after. 

The West is home for men like him and Merriell. He had been the only man working the night Eugene had rolled in, made brave by the drinks he'd had at the inn, and by his own self-imposed loneliness from being on the move. They'd fucked in Merriell's warm little cave of a room; easily the smallest in the building, tucked away behind the bathroom and underneath the stairs, and crammed to the eaves with the products of what Eugene now affectionately calls Merriell's 'magpie-ing'. Afterwards, they had passed a cigarette back and forth between each other, and listened to a man and woman giggle and splash water in the bathroom behind their heads. Above them, the stairs creaking as some lucky man and his lucky girl ascended them. Eugene had been surprised by how normal Merriell was. It was his first time with a whore; he hadn't expected time to enjoy the afterglow. 

Two months later he'd been back, sore from the saddle but near-mad with longing. Not a day had gone by in those months where he didn't think of Merriell. His skin, his touch, the smell of him underneath his perfume. Right there in the hollow of his throat, in the hair at the crux of his legs. And that longing is a flame that hasn't been dampened even once by time. Eugene's heart still beats double-time when Merriell's hand settles at the small of his back, at the curve of his waist. When he smiles, when he tosses his head back to laugh and flash his teeth at the ceiling. Eugene's long past the point of having to pay for Merriell's time, but he does it anyway; smooths bills flat on the table the madam sits behind, smoking. Merriell waiting silent and sulky behind him. 

"You know," he says, as they take the dim passage back towards his room, “you don't have to pay me anymore."

He's a slip of a shadow in the shadowy hallway. Eyes catching the light as he glances back over his shoulder to gauge Eugene's reaction. "I don't mind," is all Eugene says, the two of them lingering outside Merriell's closed door. Eugene glances away, following the intricate carvings along the skirting boards. "Ain't like I got a girl to spend money on."

"Oh?" Merriell murmurs, and then snorts. Braces the toe of his boot to the bottom of his door and sends it opening. "This your idea of flowers and chocolate?"

He crosses over the threshold, and Eugene hangs back just a second, just to imprint the image of Merriell surrounded by his nest of a room into his mind. Waits until the man looks back over his shoulder, eyes dark in the dim rosy light of his bedroom, and then Eugene quips, "No flowers to get 'round here."

Merriell just snorts, and shakes his head, comes close to grab at the buckle of Eugene's belt to haul him over the threshold. "C'mere," he says, eyes unerring on Eugene's face, his fingers very warm against Eugene's lower belly. Dimly, Eugene has the good sense to shut the door behind them, because a second later Merriell is kissing him, and Eugene’s brain dies a happy death.

They stumble backwards toward the bed, a soft, narrow thing that forces them close together by design. Merriell's fingers slipping the buttons of Eugene's shirt free, Eugene's hands tangled up in Merriell's thick, fragrant curls. They shed clothes, trip out of shoes, Merriell making sweet noises against Eugene's mouth as Eugene sheds him roughly of his clothes. Ripping the t-shirt over his head, curls standing up in a halo in the aftermath, grinning through his hair for only a second before they fall back together. The room is a whirl of blush-pink, the shine of the gas lamp on all of Merriell's trinkets, sliding gold and slick over the surfaces and right into Merriell's dark eyes. Shining with playfulness, reflecting the lamplight back at Eugene, who can practically feel the warmth of it on his skin as Merriell pushes him down onto that bed, and sinks to his knees between Eugene's open legs. 

Eugene feels breathless, like he's run a mile. But still, time slows at the feeling of Merriell's hair against his stomach, his mouth brushing against Eugene's navel, at his belly, at the thin skin between his hipbone and the hair at the base of his dick. Kisses, sweet as anything. Eugene groans, and leans back on his palms, chin on his chest just to take in the sight of Merriell's face in his lap.

"I missed you," he says softly, the low pink light of Merriell's room so close and intimate that he never dares speak above a murmur. He pushes his fingers through Merriell's unruly hair, eyes closing at the touch of the other man's tongue. "I've been dreamin' of this."

Merriell hums, and Eugene feels a pulse of affection for him that's so potent he feels heavy with it. Weighed down with feeling, sinking through the bed, the floor, to the red Texan dirt underneath them. Then Merriell takes him into his mouth, and Eugene bites his lip to muffle the noise he wants to make, and all thought leaves his mind. He becomes nothing more than a jumble of nerve-endings, a collection of wants and urges strung together by skin. His hand gripping in Merriell's curls, the way the low lamplight catches in the spit-slick shine of Merriell's mouth, of Eugene's dick holding it open. Red lips, like he's wearing lipstick to go along with his eye-pencil, to go along with the rouge he pinches into his cheekbones. Eugene feels as flushed as Merriell makes himself up to look; red down to his nipples and sweating in the close room. Those pink curtains, the heady smell of the room. Eugene feels drunk. The smell of incense and guttering candles, of Merriell's sweat. The noise Merriell makes when Eugene sinks his dick into the wetness of his mouth, chin to his chest so he can watch Merriell swallow around it, over and over until he's drawing away and coughing and laughing like it's a game. Back of his wrist to his mouth as his eyes curve. 

"You're too easy," Merriell murmurs, caught in the spell of the room just like Eugene is. The gas lamp touches his face tenderly, like a lover. Gold smeared on his cheekbones, on his brow bone. "You come in here actin' all gentlemanly." His hand drops, to reveal his grin. His voice is raspy from Eugene's dick. 

In the bathroom next door, Eugene can hear murmuring. He wonders if whoever is in there can hear him and Merriell too, and surprises himself by the pulse of heat that goes through him, that sends his dick twitching against his thigh. Absently, he squeezes at it, which makes Merriell laugh again.

"You want me?" he asks, hands sliding over Eugene's thighs. "You gonna stop actin' nice?"

Eugene snorts, and reaches out to grasp Merriell's chin between his fingers. "Even when I ain't nice, I'm nice," he says, heart swelling big when Merriell turns his face to free himself. Eugene lets him go easily, but taps at his cheek in vague admonishment. "You look pretty in that makeup," he says, as Merriell rises to come join Eugene on the narrow bed. "Pretty suckin' my dick."

"The girls like makin' me up," he says, and they shuffle silently for a second, the bed creaking under their bodies as they work to fit on the small mattress. Merriell grins, looking down himself as he comes to straddle Eugene's hips, palming at his own half-hard dick as he adds, "Think I'm the little brother they never got."

"Brother, huh?" Eugene mutters, and they laugh. Merriell treads the line between man and woman with an ease that Eugene can only wonder at. The rouge on his cheeks, the soft feminine dip of his waist. The dark, course hair between his nipples, running down to his dick. Eugene scratches his fingers through it now, feeling hungry in some deep and insatiable part of himself. "I really have been dreamin' of you," he says, as Merriell starts to roll his hips in Eugene's lap, rubbing his dick against the softness of Eugene's stomach. 

"Oh yeah?" he asks, playful curiosity in his eyes as he flicks them up to meet Eugene's. "Been thinkin' 'bout this?" He punctuates his words by pressing his ass back on Eugene's dick, the corner of his mouth quirking when Eugene moans, and grips at his hip. 

"This," Eugene agrees, thumbing at Merriell's hipbone as the man leans over him to grab lubricant from the bedside. "And other stuff."

"Lovesick," Merriell mumbles, fondly, hand resting against Eugene's face for a second. He's backlit by the covered windows, cast in the diffuse pink light of the sun thrown through the curtains. Handsome like a little god, pink and black and bronze and deep deep green. Eyes that are normally pale by daylight are dark, and warm, and swallowing Eugene up in this rosy world tucked away under the stairs. The best part of Charming, most precious part of Eugene's world. His heart aches for Merriell like a sore tooth when they're apart. And here, now, it still aches. Even though they're closer together than two people can be; even though Eugene can't tell where he ends and Merriell begins once he sinks into him. The two of them clung together by sweat and spit and Eugene's orgasm smearing wet on Merriell's thighs as they collapse together into the afterglow. 

"You're beautiful," Eugene murmurs, cupping Merriell's face in his hands as he kisses at the man's cheeks, his eyelids, his jaw. "God, I missed you."

Merriell makes a noise in the back of his throat; a low, pleased little purr as Eugene kisses every inch of his face that he can reach. His hand comes to pat at Eugene’s bicep, a silent bid for him to let go, which Eugene does grudgingly. He feels clingy, touch-starved, unwilling to surrender even a moment of his time with Merriell to being apart from him. And Merriell seems to sense it. An indulgent smile tugs at his mouth, as he gathers Eugene close for one last long, slow kiss, before detaching to rise from the bed. The frame creaks at the release of his weight, and Eugene reclines back into the pillows to watch Merriell navigate the room. Just a slip of a silhouette in the dim room, slim-hipped and curly-headed, backlit by the covered-over window. Eugene feels his heart swell bigger and bigger with every second that passes as he watches Merriell. Leaning over to puff out a candle in its final, guttering seconds. The snap of a match through the book as he lights another, the way the flame flares and then shrinks, lighting his face sweetly in its glow. 

“This room feels more like home than my place does,” Eugene murmurs, eyes on the ceiling. The stairs are creaking. A couple going neither up nor down, but just shifting in place. Sometimes when people step too heavily, plaster will fall from the ceiling and stick to their sweaty skin. Across the room, Merriell is washing the sweat from himself. The slosh of the water in the wash basin, the sound of him wringing out his cloth. When he comes back to bed he’ll be damp and smelling sweet, just for Eugene to mess him up again.“Ain’t that funny?”

Merriell huffs. “I’ll wager you’ve spent more time here than you have in that place.” Eugene watches him dip the wash cloth between his thighs. He’s still hard, and that makes Eugene palm absently at his own dick. Various images flit across his mind. Merriell on his hands and knees, Merriell on his side. Merriell, leg pressed to his chest and mouth open around Eugene’s thumb. He squeezes at his balls. On the other side of the room, Merriell says, “Really, Gene?”

“’S been a while,” Eugene mutters, and grins at Merriell’s snort. The wash cloth flops audibly back into the water, sending it sloshing over the sides of the basin. Then Merriell is pacing back across the room, a smile tugging at his mouth as he climbs over Eugene into his spot by the wall. Shoved up this close together, Eugene can smell the sweat still clinging to Merriell; his hairline, the parts of him he hadn’t washed before Eugene had unknowingly urged him back to bed. It makes his dick stir in his lap, makes him lean in close to nose along the column of Merriell’s neck. He smells like musk there; like perfume. Rich and heavy, chemical-tasting when Eugene presses his tongue to it. 

“You really been missin’ me bad,” Merriell purrs, hand in Eugene’s hair as he bites and sucks at Merriell’s collarbones, his chest, his nipples. “Haven’t you?” he adds, as his hand traces over Eugene’s thighs to find his dick thickening up. Then he moans; Eugene’s teeth grazing over his nipple, nose in the dark hair that covers his chest. He smells like himself the most, here. Second only to the hair between his legs. Eugene’s dick twitches in Merriell’s loose grip at the thought.

“Lemme do you,” he murmurs into the sweat-slick skin of Merriell’s throat. He passes his hand over Merriell’s waist, scratching his fingernails through the hair on Merriell’s belly just to make him laugh and shift away. “Wanna get my mouth on you.”

Merriell surrenders with a sigh, the two of them slotting so perfectly together on the bed that it was like it was made just for them. The sheets rumpled and kicked to the bottom, Merriell shining with sweat once more in the sultry pink light of the room. Eugene licks at his hip, first, just to taste the sweat he can see glowing there on his skin. Grabs at the back of Merriell’s knee, and poses him, positions him, the man going easily as he always does. Hand replacing Eugene’s hand so he can hold himself open, so Eugene is free to duck between his legs and spread his ass, to lick slow and filthy over his hole. He smells like a different kind of musk there. Nothing you could bottle, even though Eugene wishes he could. Wishes he could take it home and have it for when he’s spilling uselessly in his own fist at night, his memories of Merriell a ghost compared to the real thing. And Merriell is still open under his mouth, still wet and made wetter by Eugene’s spit. His fingers fisted in Eugene’s hair, not pulling, or pushing; just holding. Keeping him in his place. Merriell knows well enough that he doesn’t have to urge Eugene to do anything. Eugene knows all the right buttons to press, just as Merriell knows his own. 

Moan caught in his throat, Merriell grits out, “Please,” and doesn’t need to say a word more. Eugene kisses at the inside of his thigh, and eases Merriell’s fingers from the grip he has them in at the back of his knee. In his hair, Merriell’s fingers bunch, and release. _I love you_ , Eugene thinks, looking up the length of Merriell’s body. Hand thrown over his eyes, the other clutched in the pillow under his head. He never knows how to tell him. He always just hopes to God that Merriell knows. He thinks he must. It’s there in the way Merriell’s fingertips linger on Eugene’s cheekbone, the way he hums low in his chest when Eugene rests his cheek against his thigh. When Eugene passes his tongue over his balls, Merriell makes a noise in the back of his throat, and goes limp. Fingers combing idly through Eugene’s sweaty hair as Eugene takes Merriell into his mouth. 

He likes him like this. The desperation leeches out of him with Eugene’s mouth around his dick. Eugene’s sure Merriell would be happy to rock into his mouth forever, if he could. Easy to swallow down around, easy to clutch close and hold. Eugene circles his arms up around Merriell’s hips, and closes his eyes, gives himself over to the feeling. The weight of Merriell in his mouth, the taste. The two of them embalmed together in the close, thick air of Merriell’s bedroom. Like ants in amber. Twined together in stasis, in a soft death. He still smells a little like rosewater, now that Eugene’s this close to him. That hint of something bruised and floral clinging to him, like it could be coming up in his sweat with how slick the two of them are. It’s a necessary evil, from lying together in this heat. It means that when Merriell starts to come, Eugene can barely tell. If it wasn’t for his toes curling in his sheets, his hand coming back to clutch hard in Eugene’s hair, he’d be none the wiser. Salt is salt is salt. It’s skin, it’s sweat, it’s come. And Merriell sweats so pretty, he comes so pretty. Mouth a smear of red in the dim room. Body a taught line of lean muscle for a second, drawing out and out as Eugene sucks on him, and then he slumps and his hand is pushing at Eugene’s forehead as he hisses between his teeth.

“Quit it, quit it,” he mutters, brows drawn down and a shudder shaking him as the last of his orgasm goes through him. “Jesus.”

Eugene hums, hand between his own legs and a grin on his face as he nips at Merriell’s hip, flushed and prickly with how hot he feels, but satisfied. _I love you_ he thinks again, when Merriell pats at his shoulder in a silent plea to come join him.

“You want —?” he asks, as soon as Eugene nudges his hard dick up against the curve of his ass. Eugene just kisses the back of his neck, and eases his hand over Merriell’s hip, pulling him back. “You’re relentless,” Merriell gripes, but he sighs when Eugene buries himself back into him, and shivers when Eugene pulls playfully at his nipple. 

“I’d be out the door if you didn’t like it,” Eugene says, knowingly, and grins into Merriell’s hair as he laughs. When he swallows, Eugene can still taste him. Salt and musk of a different kind. 

“Yes you would,” Merriell says, darkly, but his hand comes back to clutch in Eugene’s hair as they rock together in the crumpled sheets. Eugene’s teeth find Merriell’s shoulder when he comes a handful of minutes later, the other man shuddering as Eugene works himself off inside him.

They spare a moment to catch their breath. To let their hearts run down as far as they’ll run. Eugene feels his picking back up with every glance at Snafu; debauched and red-cheeked and dark-eyed, blinking slowly at Eugene in the half-light. A smirk tugs at Merriell’s mouth, and he rolls his head to the other side before Eugene can work out what Merriell had seen on his face to make him so amused. 

They share a cigarette. Merriell rolls it, dropping tobacco carelessly into the sheets, even as Eugene tries to brush it back out.

“Onto the floor?” Merriell says, affronted. “These sheets hafta be washed, the floor doesn’t.”

“You’re disgustin’,” Eugene says, with affection. Merriell grins at him, and sways close to steal a kiss. They smell like each other. Eugene knows it’s only a matter of time before Merriell bundles them both into the washroom behind his bedroom; there’s only so much that wash basin in the corner can do. But for now, he’s determined to revel in it. Knowing that, for a time, Merriell is all his. And that he’s all Merriell’s in turn. 

Their fingers brush as Snafu passes Eugene the burning cigarette. “Hold that,” he mutters, and reaches from the bed for the ashtray on his dresser. It finds its home on Eugene’s belly; Merriell himself curled up against Eugene’s side with his head on his shoulder. The cigarette is perfect, the nicotine going straight to Eugene’s head, the cigarette paper rasping in the quiet room. Just the sway of the curtains in some invisible draft. The distant sounds of the front of the house; the clattering of glasses, the sound of music, of voices.

“It’s nice all the way back here,” Eugene murmurs, and Merriell makes a noise of agreement. 

“Feels like we’re someplace else.”

_We could be_ , Eugene thinks. His eyes flit from the gas lamp burning low but steady on Merriell’s dressing table, to the robe hung on the back of the door. Deep green, shot through with a silvery thread that catches the pink light beautifully. Not for the first time, Eugene wonders who had gifted Merriell that. Not for the first time, a pulse of jealousy goes through him at the thought.

“You ever think about leavin’?” he asks, softly. Merriell’s head is under his chin, making reading the other man’s expression impossible, but Eugene feels him tense up. His cigarette hovers in midair, frozen between mouth and ashtray. Eugene watches the cherry trace through the air, and then Merriell takes a drag from it.

“Sometimes,” he says. There’s a wryness to his voice. “I s’pose you mean leavin’ with you.”

Taken-aback, Eugene shifts, upsetting Merriell from his chest. “Who else?” he asks, as Merriell sits up with a sigh, heavy-lidded eyes settling comfortably on Eugene. His hair is wild, the dark pencil around his eyes smeared and smoky. Sweat still gleaming in the hollow of this throat as he exhales smoke slowly into the space between them. 

“You think Mavis’ll let you buy me out?” A smile lurks behind his cigarette. “I’m the only boy around for miles.”

The madam. Somehow, the name doesn’t suit her. “She’ll find another,” Eugene says, petulantly. They’ve had this argument before. It leads to nothing but going around in circles until one of them grows tired enough to forget about it. Sometimes it feels very much like they’re reading lines; performing some farce just to get it over and done with. Eugene still feels drowsy and heavy from his orgasm. He doesn’t want to go through the motions today. 

“Why don’t you ever think of movin’ here?” Merriell asks, and only manages to hold his straight face for a second before he snorts. Grateful for the release, Eugene laughs too, smearing a hand over his face as he lets it go. It’s the only thing he can do to keep himself sane sometimes. He knows it’s not Merriell’s fault any more than it’s his own. Still, the knowledge doesn’t help the ache that gnaws at him. He wishes he could rewind time to ten minutes ago, when he was panting out his pleasure into the nape of Merriell’s neck. Everything feels sweet wrapped up in the pink wash of sun through the makeshift curtains, until it doesn’t, and the room shows itself for what it is. Heavy with the smell of candles and perfume and sex. Pretty little cage for the pretty little caged thing that is Merriell.

They live in a bubble removed from the outside world. When Eugene comes to visit, they rarely leave the bedroom. Not that Charming holds much entertainment, but Eugene finds it difficult to disengage from the life they’ve invented for themselves here, in this room tucked away under the stairs. Its sloped roof, the dishes full of Merriell’s various trinkets and pieces of jewellery. The creak of the stairs overhead and the creak of the bed under their bodies as they lie together. It’s easy to shut oneself away and forget. But dawn pauses for no man, and before long Eugene’s wallet is empty, and despite Merriell’s claims at not having to pay anymore, Eugene knows better. The madam would have his balls, and his dick just for good measure. So there’s nothing to do but say goodbye and saddle up, to ride his lonely path back to Mobile. Sometimes Eugene finds himself tempted by bordellos he comes across on his journey home. Stopping off in little anonymous towns not far different from Charming, though of course they’re all missing the pearl at their centre that Charming can boast. Eugene never gives in to the urges. It’s not some moral reason; he simply doesn’t want it. When he thinks of love he thinks of pink bedsheets and of pink light reflecting back in Merriell’s eyes. He thinks of reading a book to Merriell, the man’s head pillowed on his stomach, skinny legs kicked up against the wall as someone talks and laughs in the bathroom behind them. 

“I can hear you thinkin’,” Merriell mumbles, pulling Eugene away from his dive into the future, his morose thoughts of what the next few days hold for him. Bliss, for a time. Then a long, hard journey back home to that one bed apartment he can’t stand. 

Merriell is laid across his chest, halfway to sleep, judging by the slur of his voice. Eugene can’t tell what time it is. This bedroom exists in same strange liminal space where time flows and drips and freezes. It’s the curtains over the windows, it’s Eugene’s complete distraction and rapt attention on Merriell. Even now he’s not doing anything but watching the man’s face. The movement of his eyelids as he dozes. Gently, Eugene brushes Merriell’s hair back from his forehead. He always looks so young like this. Eugene doesn’t know his age; isn’t sure that Merriell knows himself, beyond a guess.

“What would you be if you didn’t have to be this?” Eugene asks, softly. Merriell, a notoriously light sleeper, grunts.

“A kept man.”

Eugene huffs. “You’re already a kept man.”

“Okay,” Merriell mutters, eyes still closed, broad hands folded over his bare chest like he’s in a coffin. “Kept by one man.” That stings. Judging by the way Merriell blinks his eyes open a second after saying it, he knows it does too. “Sorry.”

“What would you really do?” Eugene murmurs, ignoring it. Merriell can read, he can write. He’s handy; he’s hardworking. Eugene wonders if he even knows what kind of world exists outside of the rosy bubble he’s perfected for himself. 

Merriell doesn’t answer for a long time. It’s only the way his teeth worry at his lower lip that tells Eugene he’s awake at all. The nervous shift of his fingers, balled together over his chest. “I’d like to grow things,” he says, eventually. His eyes are glassy with tiredness when he opens them; gently, Eugene strokes his thumb over Merriell’s cheekbone. “Y’know? Corn, carrots. Peaches.” His eyes close. He shrugs. “Things like that.”

“You could do that,” Eugene says, going back to combing his fingers through Merriell’s wild curls. “In Mobile, even.”

Merriell makes a non-committal noise. Then the corner of his mouth quirks, and Eugene knows he’s got him. “You’d like that,” he mumbles, hands relaxing flat onto his chest. “Wouldn’t you?”

“Sure,” Eugene murmurs. He smiles, imagining it. “I’d like that a helluva lot.”

“Yeah,” Merriell sighs, wistfulness in his voice. One of the low-burning candles has snuffed itself out, and now the room is full of the smell of its smoke. “Maybe one day,” Merriell adds, quietly into the silence. “I’d like to go back to Louisiana too.”

Eugene has never learned how Merriell found himself in this confection of a whorehouse in West Texas. His drawling bayou accent places him immediately as an outsider, with no explanation towards the why. It’s another one of Merriell’s many mysteries. Eugene can’t help but think that drawing him away from this place might bring them all to the surface for him to see. 

“We can go there,” Eugene murmurs, watching Merriell’s face carefully for any shift of his expression. “We could go anywhere. There’s nothin’ stoppin’ us leavin’ right now and not tellin’ a soul.”

The myriad of items in Merriell’s room seem to shift, and stare down at them. The lamplight glancing off dusty old perfume bottles, necklaces rattling with beads. Trinkets and tchotchkes, the age-spotted face of the mirror that hangs from a nail above his wash stand. In Eugene’s lap, Merriell laughs. 

“Look at you,” he says, eyes open and fond on Eugene’s face. “Fixin’ to steal me away.” His hand rises from his chest to urge Eugene close for a kiss; upside-down and off-centre. 

“You wouldn’t let yourself be stolen,” Eugene murmurs, and snorts half-heartedly at the way that makes Merriell smile. His eyes slip closed again, the draw of sleep too strong, and Eugene smokes a thoughtful cigarette as he listens to the house creak and settle around them both. Feels like a living thing sometimes. The bar is the belly of it, full of laughing girls and rough-handed men, flushed from the alcohol and from attention after so long. Merriell’s room is the heart of it; the beating, pink-flushed centre of it all. Or perhaps Eugene’s just biased. Or tired. The sex, the journey, the way Merriell’s dozing is making him feel sleepy too. When he’s alone in his place in Mobile, Eugene fantasies about this. Sleeping next to Merriell like it’s his bed too. It’s easy to pretend, half asleep with the heavy warm weight of someone you love weighting you down. 

They doze, long into the late afternoon, and finally rise to wash around suppertime. Merriell kneels by the side of the tub and washes Eugene’s hair for him, washing the sweat from his skin, erasing any evidence of their afternoon together in bed. Though some never washes away completely; Eugene always gets to take a little reminder of his time in Charming home with him. The bright pink matchbooks in his bedside drawer. The blush-pink bites littering him from throat to navel. 

Back in Mobile, he’ll test his fingertips to the bruises. Watch them blanch white before the colour slowly creeps back in. Pink like the bath house. Pink like Merriell’s room. Eugene always wonders if Merriell does it on purpose, to give Eugene something to remember him by, or whether he’s simply caught up in the moment of their lovemaking and acting on pure impulse. Eugene thinks he knows the answer, even if Merriell would never admit to it.

**Author's Note:**

> thanks for reading :~) hope you enjoyed!


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